Yes, worship Me! For I am above all thee petty mortals--dogs are the path to true enlightenment! Dogism is the one true way to gain passage to that glowing Beach in the sky, where the treats and walks floweth plenty. Those who fall out of the faith shall be sent to the Veterinarian in the afterlife. Now, go forth in My name and slaughter all those who would worship some other god (particularly those who would worship those cat sons-of-bitches) and take their virgin daughters as your property! Baths shall be illegal, and all mailmen shall be either executed or excommunicated from my Holy State.

HAGART wrote:I caught up and read it all. Most people don't know how hard it is to be atheist and think about not-thinking anymore. We don't have a magic book to give us answers so it's actually a very hard life for us. But it doesn't mean we can't be 'spiritual' and think about thought and be metacoginitive, question thought, question emotion and dig deep. But you don't need a 'guru' wearing an orange jump suit, sitting in a lotus position meditating to find that.

DeschainXIX wrote:The only thing we can know for certain is the present moment. And that is where we must live. We must learn to be content with mere existence and sensation. We can enjoy no aspect of our lives if we are constantly cluttering our minds with thoughts that it will all one day end. When eating a delicious, perfect meal, you probably aren’t thinking to yourself that it will be over soon, and that perfect taste nothing more than a memory. Probably you only sit there, thinking not much at all, simply enjoying the sensations and pleasures of that meal. That’s the sort of attitude we must exercise throughout our lives with if we want happiness.

You can either hear it from DeschainXIX, a sentient dog that has a gift of the English language and somehow mashes out words on a keyboard with his paw, or you can learn from my own guru! MY OWN PET DOG! Read that quote above and realize that dogs are the most connected with themselves and icons of spirituality and meditation that we humans lack and struggle to achieve. They live in the present and do all that, WITHOUT BELIEF (they are atheist), and don't think much about the future or dwell on the past and enjoy their meal when they get it. They are more of a spiritual leader than the Dalai Lama!

To sum it up, maybe we think TOO MUCH, and that's the problem when it comes to achieving ultimate contentedness within ourselves and all we perceive in our external world. Try and exist for one day, just be, without words. Try it! (I haven't done it and end up talking to myself, but be a dog for a day, and see what happens). Maybe I'm not an atheist anymore, I'm a dogist, or a catist, or if we want to have fun with words, I'm a pussyist!

I'm such a dog for saying that! (Always got to get deep and then end with a joke. That's my M.O.)

I'm going to play devils (cats) advocate for a second Current estimates show dogs and humans have a symbiotic relationship going back over 10,000 years. We have influenced their evolution and they ours for that long. Now look at a dog like chaser and tell me who is changing more? Maybe we should worry more about planet of the dogs and not planet of the apes.

http://youtu.be/_6479QAJuz8

Is Lucid Dreaming the brains preparation for the next step of human evolution when we can escape the corporeal bond of our bodies?

Makes me wonder again about the “Elixir of Sentience” hypothetical I’ve pondered on before. Suppose that some government developed an easy, cheap means of altering the sentience of species that inhabited a certain minimum intellect (IE a convenient serum that could be injected into a canine subject and make it's neurological complexity on par with humanity). What do you all think people would do with it? What effect would it have on our society, our common mainstream philosophy and mindset? Would there arise two schools of thought, pro-sentientists and (the far more selfish, in my opinion) anti-sentientists? Would artificially-sentient, artificially-intelligent animals gain some level of substandard citizenship upon achieving their boostered state of intellect? Or would (and I think this the far more likely eventuality) the Elixir be simply and starkly made conclusively illegal? Such a thing would be extremely problematic. Interesting nonetheless to think about. It’s a fun little science fiction nodule by which one can question one’s preconceived notions about human privilege and responsibility to the natural--and harsh--universe that birthed them.

deschainXIX wrote:Yes, worship Me! For I am above all thee petty mortals--dogs are the path to true enlightenment! Dogism is the one true way to gain passage to that glowing Beach in the sky, where the treats and walks floweth plenty. Those who fall out of the faith shall be sent to the Veterinarian in the afterlife. Now, go forth in My name and slaughter all those who would worship some other god (particularly those who would worship those cat sons-of-bitches) and take their virgin daughters as your property! Baths shall be illegal, and all mailmen shall be either executed or excommunicated from my Holy State.

I don't like your dogma!

(Such a long quote for a pathetic punchline! I'm laughing by how lame my joke is. I love satire, and must say, I feel like you and me, and we, can go back and forth just like my atheist cousin I know and feel the same way with you.)

I'm always a satirist and it gets me into trouble when others don't get it.... but I keep doing it and won't stop!

Dogism and Catism is the path to follow to find the true essence of who we are deep down, to become the feral human that we once were, not the domesticated human who is blind to chose left or right puppets in an emotion booth, ...err I mean... election booth, but one who questions the very existence of personal desire itself, and questions other's motives.

Become one who is NOT AFRAID! Not afraid to poop on the rug, or scent mark on your fine china. Not afraid to stand up and hump someone's leg when we feel the desire without question! A human who pees on the rug, sees their leader, their, 'master' try to strike him with a rolled up news paper, and snatches it in mid-swing with his teeth AND THEN.... opens it up and says... hey did you hear about this? I got some news for ya!

I'm both a dogist and a pussy catist. Is there a way to marry these two polarizing ideas? I should write a book. I'll entitle it, "The way of the pussy: Living life doggy style"

Strangely profound. I'd read that book--though I may find myself socially ostracized for the, ah, eloquent title. I was wondering if anyone would perceive my anti-religious satire, or if they thought I was just being strange lol.

Has anyone read "God's Debris" by Scott Adams? If you haven't, buy it, read it, and discuss it with your friends in a pub. It will be fun if you are half pissed.

[ Post made via Android ]

"Empty cognizance of one taste, suffused with knowing, is your unmistaken nature, the uncontrived original state. when not altering what is, allow it to be as it is, and the awakened state is right now spontaneously present."

Well, I'll say something about it. The book is fiction. It does not represent the author's views in any way but the content will spin your brain if you are not paying enough attention. The protagonist meets a mysterious old man who believes in God but not in the conventional (monotheistic/polytheistic) sense. It is something like a weird kind of pantheism but with a deistic view of the origin of the universe. You see, in the old man's view, there was a powerful god before the universe. But this god did not generate the universe in an act of creation. It was an act of destruction. Or self-destruction. That's right, god was a suicide bomber!

The big bang was His divine bomb going off. As God, He does not have the following human shortcomings: no fears, no desires, no curiosity, and no hunger. Omnipotence would mean that nothing is a challenge if everything that motivates us is based on weaknesses. It would also appear that being God is boring but even this is a human feeling. So what could motivate God if not the challenge of self-destruction? It would be the only challenge and only one of the questions that He hasn't answered: What would happen?

You might be thinking: Well, if He is all-knowing wouldn't He know in advance whether or not He succeeds and thus there is no real challenge? Wouldn't God have precognition and even know in advance about His decision to attempt to commit suicide in order to answer His question? (And what about His free will one wonders.) Yes. But the old man posits that perhaps that is only applicable to His normal conditions of omnipotence. Would it not end with the end of His omnipotence at the act of destruction?

Let's look at it this way. A God who knew the answer to everything would not be motivated to do anything or create anything. He would have to have one nagging question: What happens if I cease to exist? (It is in fact a question that many of us ask: What happens when I die?) God would be motivated to answer this question in order to complete His knowledge since He has no fear and no reason to continue His existence. So the old man says: "The fact that we exist is proof that God is motivated to act in some way."

The old man also displays scientific savviness, besides a strange brand of philosophy, during the conversation. suddenly, the protagonist comes to the realisation and the old man confirms it for him: "We are God's debris."

Apparently God is in the process of answering His own question. "Is He conscious?" The protagonist asks. "Yes," the old man replies, "through me and you..."

"Empty cognizance of one taste, suffused with knowing, is your unmistaken nature, the uncontrived original state. when not altering what is, allow it to be as it is, and the awakened state is right now spontaneously present."